Background: The continuum of maternity care is the continuity of maternal health care services that a woman practices antenatal care, skilled birth attendant, and postnatal care. Even though there are positive inclinations towards the continuum of maternity care, the problem is still significant. So, the purpose of this study was to assess the utilization of continuum maternity care and associated factors among women who gave birth in the last 12 months before the data collection period in Debre Berhan town. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted from February 17 to March 15/2020. The respondents were selected by using the cluster sampling technique. Face-to-face interview was used for data collection. EpiData software version 3.1 was used for data entry and exported to SPSS version 21 for further analysis. In multivariable logistic regression, a statistically significant association has declared a p-value < 0.05. Results: In this study, the proportion of women who completed the continuum of maternity care was 37.2% (95% CI: 33.4– 41.1). Completing primary education (AOR: 2.73, 95% CI: 1.17– 6.38), secondary education (AOR: 3.11, 95% CI: 1.32– 7.31), college and above educational level (AOR: 4.15, 95% CI: 1.79– 9.57), initiation of first ANC visit ≤ 16wks (AOR: 2.57, 95% CI: 1.41– 4.68), knowing key pregnancy danger signs (AOR: 1.91, 95% CI: 1.15– 3.19), and well prepared on birth and complication readiness (AOR: 1.59, 95% CI: 1.10– 2.32) were found to positively increase the chance of completing maternity care in our study area. Conclusion: Even if a higher proportion of mothers completed the continuum of maternity care in the study area than the finding at national level of 9.1% basing EDHS 2016 data, further interventions are mandatory to reach the acceptable level. Therefore, health promotion programs targeting mothers with no education and lower educational level are important to increase their awareness about the importance of completing all levels of maternity care, health education, and counseling regarding early initiation of ANC, pregnancy danger signs, and birth preparedness and complication readiness plan.

Background: Receiving a minimum of four antenatal care, as per the World Health Organization recommendation, enhances the possibility of utilizing effective maternal health care during antenatal follow-up. Hence, this study aimed to identify the level of a minimum of 4 ANC usage and factors associated with Debre Berhan town. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was employed from February 20 to March 10/2020 among women who gave birth in the last 6 months before the data collection period in Debre Berhan town. Data were collected using face-to-face interviews with the pre-tested tool by trained data collectors from randomly selected participants. After entering the data into Epi-data software version 3.1, it was further processed using SPSS version 23 statistical package. Both bivariate and multivariable Logistic regressions were fitted to identify the determinants for the utilization of a minimum of 4 antenatal care. A significance level of 0.05 was used to decide the significance of statistical tests. Results: A total of 390 women were interviewed giving a response rate of 99.2%. In this study, 78.5% (95% CI: 74.4– 82.6) of women received a minimum of four antenatal care visits. Maternal educational status, initiation of antenatal visit at ≤ 16 weeks of gestation, and husband support/partner involvement were identified predictors of utilization of minimum 4 antenatal visits. Conclusion and Recommendations: Use of at least four antenatal visits in Debre Berhan town was found to be good. Health promotion programs targeting mothers with no education and lower educational level are important to increase their awareness about the importance of antenatal services. Male partner involvement during care related to pregnancy and promoting early initiation of antenatal care is important to overcome challenges towards a minimum of 4 antenatal visits in Debre Berhan town.

BACkGROUND: Adverse pregnancy outcomes lead to serious health consequences to the mother and/or the baby. These Adverse birth outcomes; prematurity, low birth weight and still birth represent significant problems in both developing and developed countries. OBJECTIVE: To identify determinants of adverse pregnancy outcomes among deliveries takes place in Jimma University specialized hospital from January1 – December 31 / 2015. METHODS: The study was a facility based unmatched case-control study design conducted by reviewing mothers and newborn cards and registration log book who delivered in Jimma university specialized hospital from January 1 /2015 to December 31/2015, southwest Ethiopia. The study was done on randomly selected 86 cases and 258 controls using structured data collection checklist. Data analysis was done by SPSS version 20 and multiple logistic regression statistical methods were used to identify the predictors. RESULT: Most of the cases 80.2 % and controls 82.9 % were between the age group of 20-34 years. Mothers who are referred for delivery service from other area are more than five times to have adverse pregnancy outcomes than mothers who are not referred, AOR=5.49 95% CI [2.80-10.76]. And mothers who had illness during current pregnancy are seven times to develop adverse pregnancy outcomes than controls, AOR=7.22, 95% CI = 1.65-31.58]. Mothers who attend ante natal care (ANC) were 83% less likely to have adverse pregnancy outcome, than mothers who didn’t attended ANC follow up, AOR = 0.17 95% CI [0.06-0.49]. Pregnant mothers who are anemic or had hemoglobin level of less than 11 gram/ dl are more than seven times to have adverse pregnancy outcomes than non-anemic pregnant mothers, AOR=7.29 95% CI=[2.85-18.67]. Additionally, women who had obstetric emergencies during current pregnancy, complications during current delivery, and multiple pregnancy are more than 18 times AOR =18.40[6.12-55.37], 2 times AOR=2.65[1.38-5.11] and 7 times AOR=7.59[1.49-38.65] to have adverse pregnancy outcomes than their counterparts respectively. CONCLUSION: According to the findings of this study; referral, illness during current pregnancy, having ANC attendance, anemia during current pregnancy, complication during delivery, multiple pregnancy and having obstetric emergencies are statistically significant predictors of adverse pregnancy outcomes.kEY WORDS: Adverse pregnancy outcome, Jimma (Ethiopian Journal of Reproductive Health; 2019; 11;1:51-62)

Background: PMTCT programs help safe delivery practices and recommended infant feeding, as well as providing ART for infants exposed to HIV after birth for prevention and effective treatment. PMTCT service helps to reduce about 1.4 million HIV infections among children between 2010 and 2018. This study aimed to assess the good adherence level and associated factors of option B+ PMTCT among HIV-positive pregnant and lactating women in public health facilities of Ilu Abba Bor and Buno Bedele zones, Oromia regional state, Southwestern Ethiopia 2018. Methodology: Institutional-based cross-sectional study design was implemented to investigate the level of good adherence to option B+ PMTCT and possible predictors. A simple random sampling technique was used to interview a total of 180 mothers using the interviewer-guided questionnaire for data collection. Data were entered into EpiData version 3.1 and analyzed by SPSS version 23.0 statistical software. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were computed to identify and see the relative effect of predictors on the outcome variable. Results: In this study, 146 (81.1%) of the study participants had good adherence to PMTCT option B+. Women who received social and financial support from friends, family members, and partners had good adherence to PMTCT option B+ than their counterparts. Similarly, women who disclosed their HIV status to others had good adherence than those who did not expose their status to their friends and parents. Conclusion and Recommendation: This study identified the overall level of PMTCT option B+ adherence level in the study area to be good compared to the national and some other findings. Providing support and encouraging a woman for disclosing their HV status for partners and families are very important to increase the adherence level of option B+.

Objective To assess the magnitude of diabetic health literacy (DHL) and associated factors among diabetes patients attending follow-up at public hospitals in Northeastern Ethiopia. Design An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from 24 May to 24 June 2022. Setting Diabetic clinics of four public hospitals in Northeastern Ethiopia. Participants 611 adult diabetes patients who have been undergoing follow-up care for at least 6 months were systematically selected. Patients who were unable to communicate, were critically ill and with gestational diabetes mellitus were excluded from the study. Outcomes DHL was assessed using a 15-item tool developed from existing literature. Results Of all the participants, 300 (49.1%) had low, 174 (28.5%) moderate and 137 (22.4%) had high DHL levels. The significant factors impacting DHL included age (<40 years old: AOR=3.48, 95% CI=2.11–5.77; 40–60 years: AOR=2.79, 95% CI=1.75–4.46), low education (AOR=0.29, 95% CI=0.16–0.56 for those who can’t read and write; AOR=0.41, 95% CI=0.23–0.74 for those who can read and write; AOR=0.45, 95% CI=0.27–0.76 for primary education), exposure to diabetic education (AOR=1.84, 95% CI=1.31–2.58), having ≥2 information sources (AOR=2.28, 95% CI=1.57–3.32), moderate social support (AOR=1.94, 95% CI=1.32–2.87), strong social support (AOR=2.73, 95% CI=1.75–4.26) and urban residence (AOR=1.65, 95% CI=1.14–2.39). Conclusion The study showed that less than a quarter of the patients have high DHL, with almost half having low levels of DHL. Tailoring health education programmes to diverse educational levels, incorporating multiple information sources and fostering social support networks could enhance DHL.

Background. Stigma resistance is the capacity to cope and remain unaffected by mental illness stigmatization. In bipolar patients, having low stigma resistance may result in a higher internalized stigma, low self-esteem, and poor treatment outcome. In Ethiopia, the prevalence of stigma resistance among bipolar patients is not well known. Therefore, this study is aimed at assessing the prevalence of stigma resistance and its associated factors among bipolar patients at Amanuel Mental Specialized Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Method. An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted from May 8^th to June 14^th, 2016, at Amanuel Mental Specialized Hospital. The study participants were selected using a systematic random sampling technique. The stigma resistance subscale of the internalized stigma of mental illness was used to measure stigma resistance. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression was computed to identify factors associated with stigma resistance. Accordingly, variables with P values of less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant predictors of stigma resistance with a 95% confidence interval. Results. In this study, 418 participants completed the interview with a response rate of 98.8%. The prevalence of low stigma resistance was 56.9% (95%CI=51.9‐61.6%). Being unemployed (AOR=1.65; 95%CI=1.35‐1.87), high internalized stigma (AOR=3.04; 95%CI=1.83‐5.05) and low self-esteem (AOR=2.13; 95%CI=1.72‐6.76) were significantly associated with low stigma resistance. Conclusions and Recommendation. More than half of the bipolar patients attending the Amanuel Mental Specialized Hospital had low stigma resistance. Therefore, stigma reduction programs have focused on improving self-esteem and reducing internalized stigma to increase their stigma resistance. Mental health information dissemination regarding community support and reengagement of people with bipolar disorder is highly recommended.